The Trump Administration Is Considering Holding Immigrant Youth on Military Bases

The Trump administration is looking into another move that would separate immigrant families who cross the southern border, according to The Washington Post. The latest proposal would mean that migrant children, who either crossed the Mexico/U.S. border alone or were separated from their parents by the U.S. government, would be housed at U.S. military bases. No official policy has been put in place, but the Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed it plans to conduct site visits at four military bases in Texas and Arkansas to see whether they could house children.

The Post reported that the new policy proposal came in an email sent to people who work at the Pentagon. The email read in part, “No decisions have been made at this time.”

An HHS official told The Washington Post that HHS can currently accommodate 10,571 children with bed space, but their facilities are at 91% capacity. Children spend an average of 45 days in HHS care, and 85% of children are reunited either with their parents or with another adult family member, according to the Post.

But an uptick in Border Patrol arrests through March and April has had President Donald Trump upset with his secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, over the apparent increase in immigration. The Post reported that Nielsen also told senators in a Tuesday testimony that families with children and unaccompanied minors make up 40% of those detained by Border Patrol agents, compared to only 10% five years ago.

“If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally,” attorney general Jeff Sessions said in a speech on May 7, threatening prosecution for immigrants. “It’s not our fault that somebody does that.” The Washington Post reported that, aside from being held on military bases, some of the separated children could end up in foster care.

If that proposed plan is intended to deter families from crossing the border for fear of separation, it ignores that that’s already been a threat and immigrant parents and children already often find themselves pulled apart. Military bases would only be the latest facilities used to detain young immigrants.

This would not be the first time immigrant children were housed at military bases. In 2014, the Obama administration housed more than 7,000 children in bases for months during a child immigration crisis, according to The Washington Post.

In an op-ed for the Post, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) explained some of her work on behalf of immigrant and asylum-seeking minors, dating back to the 1990s. She criticized the president’s claim that immigrant youth could be benefiting from immigration “loopholes.”

“The Trump administration’s efforts to repeal protections for children are based on an ignorance of history,” she wrote. “I will oppose any efforts to change these laws, and I call upon my colleagues in Congress to join me in resisting efforts to roll back protections for immigrant children.”